Bethesda may also be working on its own digital games store and platform

Publisher Bethesda may be working on its own digital game distribution platform, similar to existing platforms like uPlay and Steam. The company has put an early version of its own launcher online and its site has a fairly extensive catalog.

The launcher can be downloaded from Bethesda.net. It consists of several tabs, including ‘Games’ and ‘Mods’. In addition, there is a ‘Redeem Code’ button that links to the publisher’s website. All this could indicate that the publisher of games such as Doom, Fallout 4 and Skyrim will place its offer with its own digital distribution platform.

It’s not the publisher’s first step in this direction. When the Creation Kit and mod infrastructure for Fallout 4 entered beta in April, it turned out that Bethesda had made a striking decision not to host the mods on Steam, which offers a pre-built Workshop for that purpose. Previous Bethesda games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, do use the Workshop. Instead, the Fallout 4 mods will be posted on Bethesda.net.

Bethesda wouldn’t be the first to make such a move. After the rise of Steam, publishers Ubisoft and Electronic Arts followed with uPlay and Origin respectively. The difference between uPlay and Origin is that uPlay games are also offered on Steam, but many Origin games are exclusive to the EA platform. Whether Bethesda’s games would be exclusive to this new platform is not clear.

Image: Neogaf moderator Nirolak